My Year: 2016 (1 of 2)

Hello folks, I hope you know the drill by now. It is coming up to the end of 2016. It means it is time for My Year blogs.

Without My Week blogs, I would not have realised how tough 2016 has been. The theme for 2016 is Growth and Stress. It sums up the year.

Like last year, In order not to make My Year blog overly long, I decided to split the blog in two. The first one covering January to June and the next one covering the rest of the year.

From my 2016 My Week blogs, I have selected what I think were the key events for me in the year. They were a revelation! That memory needs reminding.

January

The tax returns season was in full swing. M had left the previous month. I was on my own. The new year gave me a good hint that it will NOT be an easy 2016.

It was getting too much. I seriously considered packing up and going back to being an employee. I agreed with the response from AW’s community; I was no longer employable. Once you are your own boss going back to being an employee is not an easy transition.

February

I was struggling with the workload on my own. Once again organic growth got its timing so damn wrong. I took on more clients. Client service was adversely affected. I think, I was losing it on my own.

I got my sales patter down to a fine art. That brought further growth.

March

I got in some help in the form of Q. She could only do 2 days a week. That was a help, but it was just not enough.

I had lunch with M in the hope that she would come back. Why would she, she was earning substantially more with a bigger practice. That was stupid. I was desperate and stressed. I tried, and it did not work.

I got a new bike to replace my stolen old bike. Just did not need the hassle at the time. Damn you 2016!

April

I offered full-time Senior Accountant post to a candidate from a speculative CV that I received. He failed on the right to work in UK evidence. In the background, Q was still two days a week, and the work was piling up!

I went back to the drawing board to find a full-time Senior Accountant person. This time around, I planned the selection process. It included a written test and an interview.

I offered the Senior Accountant role to Q. She accepted the offer.

It was also the month in which it was 9th anniversary of my practice. A year in which the practice achieved unprecedented growth.

Gave up on Digita and moved back to TaxCalc. On reflection, it was best to admit defeat with Digita and move on. We are very happy with TaxCalc.

May

Q became a full-time employee. There was an incredible amount of backlog work to catch up. I could not move to my business development role. I had to help Q to get all the work up to date.

June

We were still in firefighting mode. I was not happy. Things were not improving. In my mind, I was unfairly angry with M for leaving me during the tax returns season.

I also had to deal with my 16-year-old car. It had only done 27,000 miles. It was now beyond economic repair. I did put it on eBay.

My sleeping pattern was all over the place. I was too stressed to get quality sleep. Lack of sleep further increased my stress level.

We were half way through 2016. I thought to myself, this is JUST IS NOT WORKING!